Serial stowaway Marilyn Hartman sentenced to nearly 6 months in jail

By Katie Nelson knelson@mercurynews.com

Posted:
08/14/2014 06:20:09 AM PDT

Updated:
08/14/2014 06:20:43 AM PDT

Click photo to enlarge

Marilyn Jean Hartman appears in court Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 13, 2014, in the airport courthouse in Los Angeles. A woman who authorities say flew from San Jose to Southern California without a ticket was sentenced to 177 days in jail Wednesday after acknowledging that she violated her probation by returning to the Los Angeles airport. Hartman, 62, was found wandering through airport terminals after a judge ordered her to stay away from the facility, said Frank Mateljan, spokesman for the city attorney's office. (AP Photo/The Daily Breeze, Brittany Murray)

Persistence got the better of serial stowaway Marilyn Hartman, who on Wednesday was sentenced to nearly six months in jail, a week after she boarded a plane at Mineta San Jose International Airport without a ticket and flew to Los Angeles.

Hartman, 62, was sentenced to 177 days in jail, with credit for 14 days already served, after she admitted she returned to LAX a day after she was told to not set foot on airport grounds without a valid ticket, according to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Hartman flew from San Jose to LAX last week without a ticket by slipping past both TSA agents scanning boarding passes and Southwest Airlines gate agents. Her journey came to an end during a layover in Los Angeles, when airline staff did a head count of passengers bound for Phoenix and Hartman could not produce proof she was meant to be on the plane.

Hartman told reporters outside of the courthouse last Wednesday that she had "made a mistake" when she sneaked past airport security in San Jose and onto the Southwest flight, adding she had only $4.25 in "piggy-bank" change and had no idea how she would get back to the Bay Area.

Hartman, who had been sentenced to two years probation in addition to being given the stay-away order, had attempted at least six times before to board other planes at San Francisco International Airport. Until last week, however, she had been caught every time before she was able to fly out of the Bay Area.

In May, prosecutors had Hartman placed into a mental health probation program, but she again tried to board flights at SFO on July 14 and 25, violating the terms of her probation.